We’re nearing the end of our first week back in the States and everything has changed. Six days ago, we were still in Istanbul, unemployed and praying. Now, we are in Colorado, employed and praising!
Lord Herndon was essentially hired an hour after his interview, and two days before the in-service for new teachers began. Talk about last minute! So those two days involved getting car insurance and a car so that we wouldn’t be throwing money away on a rental car longer than necessary. God knew our situation, as always, and without much searching and only getting lost once, we found a 2001 Subaru Forester, which was surprisingly easy to drive off the lot! This gift was just in time for Lord Herndon to go to his first day of work, and for me to experience my first day A-L-O-N-E.
I survived.
We all had an early start when Lord Herndon and I woke up at 5:00 am to see Prince standing in our room staring at us. A combination of jet lag and location uncertainty has led our tender-hearted son to our room at all hours of the night, whether we know he’s there or not. I learned an important lesson then.
If your son asks you “Mommy, I want to play trains with you for a little bit,” do so immediately, because if you wait until you get your cup of coffee, your Sweet Pea will wake up and need to be fed, your husband will leave for work, your Princess will start crying from her crib, and the moment will be lost.
After watching a beautiful Colorado sunrise while having breakfast, I managed to get all three kids dressed, into the car (our car!) and to the park by 8:00 am. I thought the day was going pretty well when they amiably trooped back to their car seats after playing happily for two hours. It was there that I had my first casual chat with a stranger in English in three years, and the first thing she asked was “was your baby a surprise?” I fell into the trap and admitted that she arrived about a year ahead of “our schedule,” whatever that means, and the lady then went off on her own “surprise baby” story. But rather than feeling like I had connected with another mom, I felt ashamed of myself. Do I really want Sweet Pea to be The Surprise Baby? Do I want her to think of herself as unplanned, or worse, unwanted? No! So I make this commitment now that I will never again speak about Sweet Pea in that way. She is a blessing from God and His timing is more perfect than ours. When confronted with that question, I will only say that we’ve always wanted a lot of kids and each one is a blessing.
On the way home, we stopped at a market to get some much-needed groceries, snacks, and kitchen basics so that I could start cooking dinners for all of us. I had Sweet Pea in a car seat, Princess in the cart, and Prince walking with me. They were tired but tolerant. I ran Prince to the bathroom once and had a frantic time of guiding him through the steps in-between rushing out to make sure the girls were okay. We managed to get some ingredients for that night’s recipe before Sweet Pea started grunting, Princess started screaming, and Prince started bossing Princess around. So I folded and headed to the check-out line. That’s when I learned another important lesson.
Just because you are now in a country with an abundance of clean bathrooms available, it does not mean that your preschooler will not have accidents.
The drive home also taught me a lesson.
While the car may be a good way to get a baby to fall asleep, it is also a good way to get a toddler to fall asleep, especially when you want them to stay awake until you can get them home for a proper nap.
It’s a good thing those car seats aren’t too far behind the front seat, because I spent a lot of time refereeing fights and poking Princess in the leg to keep her awake. Prince oscillated between “you can sit there [Princess] but don’t look at me!” and “hold my hand [Princess], we’re almost there.”
Once we were back at my Uncle Scott’s house, I was getting three kids, three bags of groceries, and a purse through the door when Prince suddenly started crying for his Daddy. I was so confused until I realized he had had another accident. Lesson four.
Garage floors clean up easily, but you should still monitor how many beverages your preschooler has consumed so that you can plan for mandatory potty breaks throughout the day.
I was very thankful that all three managed to take an afternoon nap at the same time, but I can claim no credit for that. Then my Uncle Scott came home and the adventure started all over again. We went to a book store and then the grocery store to pick up the items that I wasn’t able to get before, and I left Princess and Sweet Pea in the car with Uncle Scott while Prince and I ran in. Prince followed me through the entire store, crying and repeatedly asking for the cart-car. I came back to find Princess hiccuping from crying the entire time we were gone. Thankfully, Uncle Scott is a very kind, patient, gracious host, and appeared unruffled by the wails. Sweet Pea then started crying once we got home.
Twelve hours after leaving, Lord Herndon came home to find us all at dinner, glassy-eyed and exhausted, but alive.
This is actually quite a big deal for me, because I have been leading such a different life for the last three years. It may not seem that long, but seriously, I was standing at the gas station, staring at the pump in acute fear, trying to remember how to gas up a car. I had to leave King Soopers before I had a melt-down from all of the choices, and how expensive everything looked. Lord Herndon has been so supportive, reminding me that we haven’t even been here a week yet and of course we are experiencing culture shock. I still feel like a baby, or a teenager living on her own for the first time. I’ve forgotten how to live in America. And I’m still in the “I’ve got to buy it now because we’re flying overseas in a few weeks and I won’t have the chance to buy it later” mode. I have to keep reminding myself that we are here for awhile and some things can wait.
But boy, it sure is nice to have celery and peanut butter again.
